The film opens to a scene where two young lovers unite on a terrace. The traceur who has leapt across from the neighbouring home is Vicky aka DJ Sandz (Vicky Kaushal) and his girlfriend, is the bright-eyed Rumi (Taapsee Pannu). She leaps at him and he carries her inside the
barsaati, but not before her aunt spots their silhouette from the kitchen window. As it does, the family arrives at getting the girl married off, but she won’t budge from her choice of partner. The family gives in to her will but DJ Sandz must first grow up and smell the
lassi before he can take on the role of providing and caring. Enter Robbie (Abhishek Bachchan), a banker from London hopeful for an arranged alliance, who seeks a “life partner over a nurse,
naukrani or escort”. With the DJ unwilling to go beyond his basic impulses, Rumi must reluctantly consider her considerably reliable alternative — but will she ever recover from her first?

Manmarziyaan’s pace can be attributed to how it carves the multiple sets of parents in the film. Concerned yet not controlling, prepared to take on the consequences of their ward’s actions minus the chest-beating. In some ways, they’re like spectators who chime in to cheer but don’t distract one from the main act — the muddled emotional churn the film’s lead trio find themselves in.

Credited for screenplay and dialogue, Kanika Dhillon establishes mood by constructing tricky turns that its characters must endure. Anurag Kashyap’s fluid narrative style touches a necessary nerve by elaborating the often-ignored impulses that many struggle to act upon. It also furnishes a flipside — acting upon them won’t always render an idyllic life. The challenges here are hence, more basic and the battle is more internal than interpersonal. There are silences where one can assume the train of thought possibly jogging through each character’s mind. Most memorably, the scene where Rumi, during her honeymoon, gets into her running kicks and sprints across a treacherous path to arrive at a stream where she breaks down, wordlessly says a lot. But later, she returns to her chalet to chug down whiskey with her husband and soon enough, even slips into the intimate nightwear (with tag intact) that her aunt had bought for her “first night”. The following morning, she sends a text to her ex—“I slept with him”. Just when you think she’s coming around, she swings back into a restless space of constant discomfort that translates across the screen.

Pannu laces her single-minded
Sikhni with a feisty determination — her Rumi must stand by her decisions, even while her intuition staggers on foreseeing the inevitable consequences. This was a mighty ask and Pannu delivers well. Kaushal’s commitment to his aspiring Honey Singh prototype is inversely proportional to the one his blue-streaked DJ shares with his onscreen love. Bachchan couldn’t have got a better vehicle to endorse his craft. That his subdued Robbie is non-confrontational, required him to communicate terrific highs and devastating lows through as few facial expressions as possible — something he nails effortlessly.

Amit Trivedi’s pumping score builds mood and assists in storytelling. While “
Daryaa” interprets the state of being hopelessly in love, “
Chonch Ladhiyaan” details a blossoming relationship through Trivedi’s signature beats.

Love triangles are as old as cinema itself. But this one marks an evolution of the genre that most reduce to “who gets the girl?” and comprehensively concludes that often, love is not all it takes.

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